Deserving
by AppleCoreCandyBox
Summary: I wonder what I ever did to deserve him...and I wonder what he ever did to deserve what happened to him...[GaarNaru Gift for Pyropixie]


Now that I think back on it, I have to wonder what I did to deserve being with someone like him. In the first nine months _/of our relationship/ _I was quiet and uncaring, acting like what little time we did get together was a waste of my life.

_/He had been the one to ask/ _I wonder now why I had said yes in the first place. It was probably only because he was too cute to resist and I had always had an odd feeling in the back of my head sex with him would be mind blowing, which it was might I add. But still, I wonder why I had said yes when he asked me to go steady with him, when we we're so blatantly different. I am as black is to white while he is as white is to black. Where his smile was, my face held a frown. His favorite color is bright blue, mine is gray.

I never really understood what he found so beautiful in the world that would make him want to smile the way he did. The way only he could. It _/that smile of his/ _always reminded me of how most children smile, disgustingly pure and peaceful, sure that the world and all it held could do him no harm.

I wish now I had tried harder to make him smile like that more. Especially now when it's so hard and so rare for one of those child-like smiles to grow on his lips, for it be actually real. Not one of those fake, dim smiles he flashes me to try and reassure me he won't break. But I know better now than ever before how breakable he was and still is. To think that I thought he didn't know the evils of the world, when he had always been dancing with the dangerous possibility of shattering all his life, just like me.

The day I found this out, the day _it_ happened, the day Naruto stumbled and fell in his dance with that danger…

That was the day that knocked me off my fucking high horse for good.

_It _happened four days after his sixteenth birthday and exactly three months before our first year anniversary as a couple _/kept under wraps, we had images to uphold/_ and I became so livid I almost let Shukaku come out willingly.

_/I had always known that silly girl teammate of his knew something about us she shouldn't, but she didn't say anything, just smiled knowingly and left us be. / _She, Sakura I think her name is, was the one who summoned me away from my village and responsibilities with a single, encrypted note.

**Naruto needs you, he was attacked. It's not good**

I had left almost immediately, telling those who I had put in charge to look after things, that I would be gone for a day or two. That I would be right back. And when I reached that village _/his village/_, I all but stalked to the hospital, and finally found the slight pink annoyance, the words that met my ears still hurt to listen to in my mind.

_/Tortured?...nearly killed him? Broke his fingers and toes and hands and feet one by one? What? ...what did she say? …rape? But how… why? Who?... I'll kill them! Fuck them until they bleed to an inch of their life and let them see how it feels/ _

I know on the outside, I must have looked like I was merely listening to a boring conversation. But still, I know the exact opposite was going on the inside. I had never felt such an anger or sense of insanity before. It had coursed through my body like fire, burning everything up and threatening to make me curl up into a ball and screech my anger and frustration out. Where had I been? How could I have let such a thing happen to him! What could I do for him, for us?

"Kazekage-sama?" I remember her voice had asked. A droplet of fear was held in those words, the droplet almost entirely overpowered by the sadness that was in the voice as well.

"Where is he?" I asked, and even I was scared by the sound of my own voice. Ice and fire slicing through it so my original vocals were almost completely lost. I sounded like some sort of mad _thing_.

The pink girl flinched slightly at my voice, saying,

"Naruto's in the room just down the hall."

"No…I mean where is _he?_" I asked, emphasizing on the 'he'.

She was silent for a moment before pointing to the door right next to us.

"We're not aloud to even see him before the trial", she said, "we're supposed to let him face a jury and the punishment for what he did."

I'm silent for a second.

"What will they do to him when he's convicted?"

An amazingly bitter smile graced her face.

"He'll be handed to the most gruesome torture tactics team in the village. Rape has a high price here, and it never goes under punished."

------

I know the full force of what had happened did not hit me until I actually saw Naruto. He was awake, that much I could see, but those weren't the eyes I was use to. Their color was still as a brilliant blue as ever, but what ever emotions that had been behind them before were now very much gone. The cornucopia of emotions that had danced in those pools before were replaced with confusion, desperation, sadness, frustration, agony, and a self-loathing as I had never seen before in his eyes.

The skin of his face had still been the same tan color as I had last seen it, except now it was littered with small, yellowing bruises and one large black left eye.

"Why is he tied down like that?" I had asked the girl, Sakura.

It was true. Both arms were strapped tightly down to either side of bed with plastic looking restraints. She had been quiet for a moment before giving me an answer.

"He…he wouldn't stop trying to hurt himself. He kept trying to c-cut himself open. He said he needed to get all the bad blood out, get all the filth out, flush his system clean. He said if he didn't, he'd make anyone who'd touch him rot. He called himself a cancer. He called himself a rotting cancer…" She said, now letting herself cry openly. It was as if those words' meanings finally hit her. It was as if she finally understood her friend could never, ever be the same.

It wasn't until she left that I finally went into that room.

Naruto didn't belong here, it was too white, too sterile, to disgustingly clean. The bed sheets looked like they were bleached far too many times, the walls themselves smelled of death and antiseptics, and the pot of fake flowers witting on the table in the far corner had so much dust on them I hadn't really been sure if gray wasn't their supposed color.

Sitting down next to him, I noticed his eyes didn't even flicker my way, both orbs still staring half lidded at the ceiling.

I had sat there for sometime, just staring at him, wondering and thinking upon many a thing.

"Gaara?" He had asked at some point, eyes still not moving, not even when I let my face hover above his. He still stared past me.

I had kissed him on the forehead, not caring if anyone saw me.

And the strangest thing happened. He had started to cry out of the one eye that wasn't swollen shut, tears falling quietly down his face. I had panicked slightly when I had seen this, clutching at his wrist bound hand, not able to settle my nerves until he squeezed gently back at my desperate grip.

And I had realized, he was crying because he was happy.

"You came…" he had said, and would say all night until he fell asleep.

For the first time in a long, long while, I had cried. What had he done to deserve something like this to happen to him?

Why him...of all people, why him?

----

It's been nearly a year since then...

And it's true; Naruto has gotten better… but still. It's still hard to get him to smile like he did before _it_. Sometimes, he has good days; sometimes his days aren't so great. But even still, he's still here with me, even through all of this.

And now I'm just trying to prove that I _do_ deserve someone like this.

"What're thinking about?" he asks me, leaning heavily onto my shoulder and looking up to the desert's night sky.

"I was thinking we should go back to your village for your birthday..." I said quietly, waiting to see if he'd take his chances or not.

He snuggled a bit closer to me, saying,

"As long as you come, I'll be alright..."

And he smiled, that smile I now tried so hard to tend to and keep alive...Again I wondered why I deserved him, and this time and answer came to me in the form of a voice in the back of my head:

'You're the only one who can get him to smile...'

------

This is for pyropixie of mediaminer(dot)org…she's freaking amazing! So…pixie, I'm sorry if this wasn't what you were expecting…it's a bit mushy, I know, but I hope you like it! If you'd like a better one (or just another one) just send me another idea (maybe a little more detailed, I had some issues coming up with a plot --;;;;;) and I'll get on it!


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